by Rod Duncan
“Nor the men of the troop,” added Lara. “They don’t dare cross Tania.”
Ellie nodded. “Don’t pay too much mind to what the men say. They’ll talk like they were giants and you a lamb to be gobbled up, but you’re one of us now. Don’t let ‘em take no liberties and they’ll catch on soon enough. Watch out for Yan the Dutchman, mind.”
“Can’t keep his hands to himself,” Lara explained. “
“Yan?”
“Beard split like a fork.” She gestured below her chin to illustrate.
“I saw him last night,” I said.
“But what he can do with the lions is a marvel,” said Ellie. “They’re like kittens to him.
“There was a big man at the card game. A giant almost.”
“That’s Sal the Knife. I did a turn as his target. He’s big but he’s got a delicate touch. Threw them so close I could feel the wind of it on my cheek when they thudded into the board. But never a graze. Not from Sal.”
“He won some money in the card game,” I said.
“Everyone’s talking about the game,” said Lara. “You skinned Silvan something wicked. Fabulo says it’s cause he taught you good.”
“Fabulo – is he the dwarf?”
“The same. He’s strutting the gaff like king cockerel this morning. Like it was him won it.”
“He was prickly as a thistle last night,” I said.
“Dwarfs is like that,” said Lara, knowingly.
I watched as she wiped out three bowls with a cloth and tipped the pan, pouring a third of the savoury porridge into each. No one spoke through breakfast. The only sounds were our spoons touching the china bowls as we ate and the occasional crackle of burning wood in the stove. I had tasted nothing like it since my childhood. Perhaps it was the hunger, but it felt as if angels were singing on my tongue.
“How many days before we move?” I asked, putting my empty bowl to one side.
“He’ll know when it’s time,” said Ellie.
“Silvan?”
“It’s Silvan will tell us, but Timpson’s the rum col. Timpson decides.”
“I’ve not seen him yet.”
“Nor will you. Keeps to his wagon.”
“Is he very old, then?”
“Don’t you go thinking age has blunted him,” said Ellie. “He always wins out. He’s got the nous and he’s lucky too.”
“But there’s no second guessing him,” added Lara. “First we’re bound for Nottingham, then he says ‘whoa’ and we’ve turned on a penny and we’re back over the border into Lincolnshire again.”
“We never turn back,” said Ellie. “Just never.”
Lara nodded. “Yet here we are.”
Both my young wagon mates were pretty, their natural good looks enhanced by the kind of flush that fresh air and exercise bestow, a complexion seldom seen in the grinding mill of the city. I held back from asking about their work. The question seemed somehow improper. It was one of them that I had seen standing at the entrance to the big top the night before, wearing a skirt cut high at the front. I could not tell which. Each probably did several jobs. Everyone doubles up in a travelling show.
Fabulo the dwarf stood waiting outside, a black cigarette in his hand. Lara and Ellie curtsied to him. I could not tell whether the gesture was mockery or if his status really required such signs of respect. Either way, Fabulo snarled. “She’s to come with me,” he said, then turned and marched towards the top of the field.
Nothing in his attitude suggested the triumphant strutting that Lara had mentioned. He pulled hard on the cigarette as if hurrying to finish it, blowing acrid smoke into the cold morning air. At last he squeezed the glowing tip between finger and thumb and cast the stub away.
“You won’t pull the same trick twice,” he said.
“Trick?”
“And you can’t play innocent, neither. Where was it? A bar? A whore house? Where did you learn your cards?”
“I never played.”
“You’re not a fool,” he said. “So don’t talk to me like I’m one. You cheated. And Silvan, he knows it too.”
“Then why didn’t he challenge me?”
“And say what? The cards you laid were not the ones he’d dealt? To call you cheat would be to admit the same himself.”
Our progress across the dewy grass had been slowing. Now it stopped. A grin spread over Fabulo’s face. “Ah, but you didn’t see his cheating! Sure, that would lighten Silvan’s mood, if he found out.”
“How would he know my cards?” I asked.
“No bullet catcher will tell you the secret of his act.”
“I saw nothing wrong in his dealing,” I said. “Nor in the shuffle.”
“There was nothing to see.”
“Nor was the deck marked.”
The dwarf scratched idly at the hole in his hand as he appraised me. There must be something obvious that I had missed. I had studied the cards, searching for the usual pattern of tiny ink dots by which a deck may be rigged. The only marks had been the infinitesimal scuffs and scratches of natural wear. How long would it have taken him to memorise such minute and random patterns? Understanding must have shown on my face, for Fabio laughed.
“You read them too?” I asked.
“No man can have such luck as Silvan,” he said. “I watched three months before seeing how he did it. Worked three months more to learn it myself.”
So saying, he set off again, and I perceived that we were heading for the nearest of two beast wagons in a cluster of sideshow tents. One of its wooden side panels had been unhooked and folded down, revealing the thick iron bars of cages. Two great lions sat on straw within.
“Time for you to earn your keep,” said Fabulo.
The lions occupied cages to either end of the wagon. The space between was empty, though it could also have served as a cage. By a ladder we climbed to the roof, where Fabulo showed me the levers and catches that raised and lowered vertical rods to operate the doors between each section. With a clunk and a screech of metal the door of one cage swung.
The dwarf pulled back a small metal cover revealing a spy hole, through which I saw one of the beasts get lazily to its feet and move across into the newly opened middle section. I then pulled the lever back and the gate swung closed behind it.
“You catch on quick,” said Fabulo. “You can shift the rods from below if your grip’s strong enough. There’s broom and shovel in the belly box, and bales of clean straw by the horses.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Save it. The smell stays on you. Worse than dog shit.”
I clambered down the ladder and into the empty cage.
“I don’t know why you’re here,” he said. “But you’ve stirred Silvan up, and that’s no good for no one.” He stared at me. For a second I held his gaze, then feeling a blush starting to rise in my cheeks, I turned away and began sweeping the soiled straw towards the edge of the cage. “Stay clear of the bars,” said Fabulo. “They’re meat eaters.”
The show I’d heard the previous night had been the first for three days. The men sat around playing cards. The women kept snug in the wagons. No one liked the waiting. Not that they dared ask Silvan why, counter to all previous practice, the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders lingered in one spot when the roads were still good and the locals out of ready cash.
“The weather’s going to turn,” muttered Sal the giant. Picking up a hatchet, a cleaving knife and a machete, he started throwing them in great arcs above his head, timing their spin so that he could catch each by the handle. Nimble work for a man of his size.
“It’ll rain. Or worse, snow. We’ll be stuck here all winter.”
Fabulo scowled at him. “Shut your mouth.”
The head of the hatchet buried itself in the turf. Sal swore under his breath, stepping back to let the other blades follow it. He rounded on the dwarf. “You’re thinking the same!”
“Thinking is different.” Fabulo flicked a warning glance to where I sat on a str
aw bale, surrounded by canvas, needle in hand.
After cleaning the beast wagons, I had been given another job. And then another. The card game having failed to get rid of me, it seemed that Silvan was now trying to wear me down with work.
Sal pulled his blades from the ground, wiping each on the grass, then on the sleeve of his dirt-encrusted coat. “She knows it. We all do.”
“Saying it doesn’t help no one.”
We watched Fabulo marching away in the direction of the big top.
“Want me to leave too?” I asked.
“Yes!” said Sal. “You’ve had your adventure. Now run home.”
“Silvan said there’s a girl like me in every town.”
“They come and then they go,” he said, putting more emphasis on the word “go”.
“When’s the last one he gave a job to?”
“Think you’re special, is that it?”
“I bet he’s not let anyone in for a year or more, man or woman. That does make me special.”
Stowing his blades in a canvas bag, he dipped his hand inside his coat and drew out a leather purse. “I’ll put a silver tenpence on that bet.”
We shook on it. His huge, rough-skinned hand gripping so tightly I felt my knuckle bones moving against each other. “Easy money,” he growled. “Fabulo can be the judge of it.”
It was my first time inside the big top and I looked around, devouring the detail. The benches were not tiered as I had expected, but ran in concentric horseshoes, leaving three aisles to the centre, as well as an ample walkway around the outside. A canvas wall partitioned off a section of the tent opposite the entrance. Behind would be a space for performers and equipment to wait.
None of the torches were lit but enough sunlight seeped through the sooty canvas for me to see Fabulo clearly enough. Though a dwarf and with arms and legs seeming too spindly to support the barrel of his chest, he was making progress around the ring through a series of perfectly executed cartwheels.
“Dwarf!” shouted Sal.
Fabulo righted himself. He seemed ill-pleased to have been discovered in the middle of his practice. If Sal noticed this he did not show any embarrassment. Striding forward he said, “Tell her she’s not the only one given a job this last year.”
“It is a bet,” I explained.
“Thinks she’s special,” said Sal. “And owes me a tenpence. Or will when you tell her.”
Fabulo spat on the sawdust. “We don’t talk to outsiders!”
“You said she was one of us now.”
“Not like that. Not yet.”
“But the bet?”
“Your bet is off!”
The brittle restlessness of the troop eased when Silvan announced that another show was to be staged that night. Most of the nearby villages had been sucked dry already. Therefore, riders set out to spread the word further afield, their bags full of daybills, brushes and pots of paste.
A SPECIAL REDUCED RATE
OFFERED AS A GIFT BY THE GREAT HARRY TIMPSON
TO THE PEOPLE OF THIS VILLAGE
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY
When I approached Silvan and offered to ride out and help with the bill pasting, the man simply shook his head. He hadn’t addressed a word to me since the card game, all instructions having been conveyed via Fabulo. Having refused my suggestion he turned his back on me and stalked away towards the wagon in which he spent much of his time – the place I suspected Harry Timpson himself must reside.
Painted green and red to match the other vehicles, it nevertheless stood out because of its greater length and width. Unlike the bow tops and kite wagons around it, this one had vertical sides. I’d seen Ellie carrying food to it and returning with empty plates and cups. Smoke rose day and night from its black chimney pipe. It had no windows.
Five minutes after Silvan had marched away, Tania the fortune-teller appeared at my side.
“How are you settling child?”
“Well, thank you.”
She took my wrist and drew it to her, turning it to expose my palm, the lines of which she traced with a finger. “It is time,” she said, then set off, leading me behind her.
“Where are we going?”
“To find the truth.”
With a shock, I realised that it was towards the large wagon we were heading. Not thinking what I was doing, I began to resist, but her grip tightened and she tugged me almost off my feet.
“Afraid of the truth?” she asked.
“No.”
“I’ll know when you lie.”
Then she was climbing the steps and knocking on the wagon door. Before I knew what was happening, I found myself pulled into the sudden dark and incense-thick air of the interior. I blinked rapidly, then opened my eyes as wide as they would go, trying to pierce the gloom.
The low sun outside had bathed the field in dazzling light. Here the only illumination came from a curiously shaped oil lamp hanging from the roof, its feeble flame sheathed in dark red glass. To the right, a workbench ran the length of the wagon. A cloth had been thrown over it, a landscape of hummocks and valleys, hinting at the objects that must be concealed beneath. To the left, Silvan and Fabulo sat on tall stools. The dwarf’s feet dangled.
“You’ve been asking questions,” said Silvan.
“Yes, sir.”
“What questions?”
“Anything to help me know my new home.”
“What did you discover?”
“Ordinary things.”
“But these are not ordinary times. Where did you learn to play Wild Eights?”
“I’d never played.”
“Lying won’t help you,” he said.
“She speaks truth,” said the fortune-teller, who was standing next to me, still gripping my wrist.
My eyes were growing accustomed to the dim red light now. Enough for me to read Fabulo’s incredulity.
“Tania tells me you’ve been a traveller in the Kingdom,” said Silvan.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now running away from Sleaford?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a lie,” said the fortune-teller.
“Lies won’t save you,” Silvan said, pulling a long, slender knife from a sheath strapped to his leg. It came free with a metallic whisper, just audible in the silence.
My mouth was suddenly dry. “I live in North Leicester,” I said.
Silvan looked to the fortune-teller, who nodded.
Then from the shadows at the back a new voice spoke. Though quiet, it possessed a resonant quality that seemed to fill the wagon. “Come closer,” it said.
Tania pulled me forward, past Fabulo and Silvan, until I stood directly under the lamp and could make out a cot at the head of the wagon. On it reclined the great impresario himself.
With a small, precise movement, he beckoned me further forward. For no reason I could explain, my heart pumped harder at this than it had at the sight of Silvan’s knife. When I stood but a pace from him he held up his hand for me to stop. In the famous illustration he wore a moustache of unusual breadth and thickness. The man before me was clean shaven, but there could be no mistaking him. The Roman nose and high forehead made Harry Timpson instantly recognisable. I found myself staring at the strange opalescence of his eyes. Flecks of light caught in them, making the irises appear to glow. Nothing in the daybill illustration had prepared me for that.
He examined my face, then the details of my clothes, down to the hem of my skirt.
“Why does a traveller of the Kingdom live in a Republican city?” he asked.
I opened my mouth then closed it again. A clock ticked somewhere under the cloth on the workbench. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.
“Answer him,” hissed Tania.
Two futures lay ahead, depending on what I said.
“Get rid of her,” said Silvan.
Tania pulled my arm back towards the door.
“I’m an exile!” The word blurted through my lips as if unbidden. “I was bo
rn in the Circus of Mysteries.”
Timpson inclined his body forward. “Barnabus died in debtor’s prison, I hear.”
I nodded.
“I met him once. He didn’t seem a man who’d take risks with money.”
“The Duke of Northampton bought up our family debts. He bribed an official. We were fined and there was no money left to pay.
“A crooked magistrate,” Timpson mused. “That I can understand.”
“He wasn’t a magistrate, sir. He was an agent of the Patent Office.”
“Liar,” growled Fabulo behind me.
“Truth,” said the fortune-teller.
Timpson shook his head. “To bribe an agent of the Patent Office... Barnabus wasn’t rich. Why would the Duke take such risks to corner a poor man? What did Barnabus possess that he so desired?”
“He wanted our pretty Elizabeth,” said the fortune-teller, close beside me.
“You’re Barnabus’s daughter? By the Devil himself!” Timpson started laughing. “She worked you like a josser, Silvan.”
“I didn’t lie,” I said, “I’d never played Wild Eights before.”
“You didn’t need to. I’d wager old man Barnabus had you palming aces before you were weaned.”
“Why’s she here?” growled Silvan.
I twisted my hand away from the fortune-teller’s grip. “I live on the canal cut, sir. I once thought that would be enough. My father used to say that for the sickness of the exile the only cure is return. But the–”
“But the sickness of the rootless will admit of no remedy,” Timpson said, completing the quote. He held my gaze for a long time after that. The clock of my fate had been fully wound. Its cogs were now in motion.
Chapter 17
Lying is an art form. It becomes sin only if the deception is discovered.
– The Bullet Catcher’s Handbook
Though I had won my place in the Laboratory of Arcane Wonders, Lara and Ellie were the only ones to have truly accepted me. Sal now avoided my company, having been scolded by Fabulo for telling me too much. Yan, the Dutchman with the forked beard, remained polite, though he never let down his guard. Silvan continued to be aggressive and I saw little of Tania, for she spent most of her time collecting wild food from the hedgerows.